MASS WITHOUT CONGREGATION AS ONE OF THE REMEDY TO COMBAT THIS DISTRESSFUL TIME

It is really a hard time for the Church to suspend mass with the congregation. This is seemingly a last resort taken by the Church in her

participation to combat COVID 19. People have said many things negative about this suspension. The other day, I received a call from a parishioner saying that the Satan is really at work in the Bishop who had suspended the liturgical life of the Church. I was really short of words to explain to her about the state of things. I know very much that many of us have their doubts about the matter, therefore I wish us to open our minds to understand the Catechesis on it.

It might interest you to know that the suspension of mass has some precedents in history. This is not the first time that public worship or Mass with the people  is being suspended in the Church.

▪When plague hit Milan in 1575, the Archbishop (St. Charles Borromeo) closed the churches but had altars built outside different churches so that people could still participate in the Mass from the windows of their houses while the priests celebrated on altars built outside the Churches. If online streaming were possible then, St Charles Borromeo would have used it. *The world didn't end and the Church still standing.*

▪Between 1918 and 1920, (that was the era after Trent and before Vatican II with all its rigor and strictness), when the *Spanish Flu* brokeout, which affected about 500 million all over the world and killed over 50 million, Churches, schools, etc were all closed. *The Church is still standing till today. Now, let us quickly get to the points.

The Church has a divine duty to care for the salvation of man, who is a composite of body and soul. The church does not only take care of the soul, because man is not only his soul. When we relegate the church only to the soul, then the belief in the resurrection of the body becomes an illusion. If the church regards the body, it becomes imperative that the church has a lot to offer to man as a whole. He tries to help man to live well in the world, participating in the mission of Jesus who took away our sicknesses. This suspension is directed to the whole man who is composite of body and soul. It is also good we understand that it is the whole man that prays, and if any composition of man is sick, man might not pray well. It becomes an imperative to suspend the public liturgical activities for the sake of man's realization of his salvation.

Secondly, in the face of serious danger or sickness or accident scenes, the victims are exempted from masses to the point that they are not guilty of the grave sins. It is on this note that we should understand that the law is made for man, and not man made for law. We are definitely victims of this infectious disease, therefore do not think that you are guilty of the sin of not keeping Sunday holy.

We can always appeal to reason, because faith and reason do not contradict themselves. Faith in God admits rationality, because reason is a faculty of the soul. And God's gift of reason does not contradict our faith in God. You can ask yourself, is it reasonable to suspend the mass with congregation, for the sake of not disseminating the virus? If it is reasonable, then it is done out of faith in God who gave us reasons.

Finally, the Church is not giving us free days of prayer. The Church is also given us opportunity, through the existence of this virus, to internalize and deepen our personal life with Jesus. You have now the opportunity to manifest yourself as a priest since we partook in the priesthood of Jesus. The reality of this suspension will help us to understand that you can minister to yourself in matters of our spiritual development. Take this chances to upgrade your love for Jesus.

God bless you all.